Art Is A Conversation Between The Artist, The Viewer, and The Piece Itself.
“Be yourself and live your life vibrantly through your work.”
Eric Friedensohn (a.k.a. Efdot) grew up around his grandmother making art, which profoundly affected his life. Among many mentors and teachers, his grandmother taught him different creative processes and encouraged his creativity. “I’m endlessly grateful for that gift,” he shares.
He studied graphic design in Philadelphia, later working across various industries before going out on his own to start Efdot Studio in NYC.
He lost nearly all of his possessions in a fire in his apartment and was forced to rebuild his life. One of the only things that made it out of that fire was a sketch for a lettering piece that said ‘Optimist.’ That was the catalyst for starting his studio under the banner ‘Art for Optimists.’ Since that fateful day in 2014, Efdot’s mission has been to uplift people through art.
In 2020 and 2021, Topps commissioned Efdot to work on a project to remix 20 famous baseball rookie cards and released his art as physical collectibles every other week. With this project, Efdot re-explored his childhood hobby of collecting cards.
While most of his other projects got canceled during the early months of the pandemic, this project enabled Efdot to build a robust community of art collectors and appreciators. “I couldn’t believe it. I was consistently being exposed to new collectors, and my art – in collectible form – was suddenly in thousands of homes.”
Around the same time, Efdot paid attention to conversations about NFTs on Clubhouse and Twitter Spaces. After an initial genesis NFT collaboration with Stefan Draws, the artist behind ‘Good Minds,’ Efdot jumped in with his first solo drop: a 10-piece animated collection called ‘Open Minds.’ It made it onto the homepage of OpenSea. “It was incredible to see all the support for my art and to kickstart my NFT journey,” he recalls.
This collection propelled him to new heights in the Fine Art world. “I constructed these compositions that felt like mind maps; each a different emotional flow of lines and dots, leaving the viewer to open their mind and find meaning in the details.” Partially colorblind, Efdot learned to use this as a strength in his work by utilizing bold colors. His playful, meditative artworks evoke moods, moments, and the passage of time.
His advice to other artists is to let go of the feeling that their work isn’t ready to be seen by anyone. “Be confident even if the space feels foreign and your art doesn’t look like everything else. Be yourself and live your life vibrantly through your work.”
